


Layers

by biblionerd07



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Flashbacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Rot in hell Zola
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-07
Updated: 2014-08-07
Packaged: 2018-02-12 05:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2097363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are layers to his trauma, like an onion, Sam says--you think you've gotten through one, and there's a million more to go through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Layers

**Author's Note:**

> I used the warning "graphic depictions of violence" but it's not really that graphic...more like it's just disturbing because of what happened to him. This was mostly inspired by _Unbroken_ , the story of Louie Zamperini, who was a POW in Japan during WWII, which I'm reading right now. It's a great book and I'd recommend it to everyone, but be warned it's definitely super disturbing because of the subject matter. The things that happened in the camps got me thinking about Bucky, and how before he was a brainwashed weapon, he was a POW, and how so many terrible things have happened to him.

The hardest part of his recovery is the sheer amount he has to recover _from_. His therapist once asked him to identify the worst thing that happened to him, and he had to spend a solid fifteen minutes sifting through horrors to pick one.

“It’s not like regular PTSD, Steve,” he overhears Sam saying gently one day. “It’s—it’s like an onion, okay? You think you got through one layer of his trauma and there’s more underneath. There’s Pierce and Hydra and hurting you, and there’s the chair electrocuting his brain, and there’s being frozen over and over, and there’s the Soviets, and there’s being awake when his arm got cut off, and there’s falling from the train, and there’s Zola experimenting on him, and there’s being a regular ol’ POW, and there’s typical combat-vet PTSD. I’m not saying he’ll never be okay. I’m just saying he’s never going to be the same, and you’re gonna have to be patient.”

Patience is a virtue, but not one Steve possesses. But Sam’s right about the layers. His nightmares and flashbacks vary. Some nights he is lining up a shot from an adjoining rooftop, unfeeling and unflinching, and squeezing the trigger to take out a Venezuelan diplomat at his daughter’s fourth birthday party, and he shoots just as they finish the song. The man’s skull bursts apart like a melon and brain matter splashes into the cake hard enough to knock the princess off the top.

Sometimes he is impossibly young, and he’s sitting in a trench that smells of dirt and gunpowder and blood, so much blood, and the man he drank whiskey with the night before is screaming for his mother because his leg’s just been blown off, and all around him men are lighting up with gunfire and he has tears streaming down his face and he’s muffling his terrified screams with his knuckles.

Sometimes on the subway, someone accidentally elbows him in the back and he is suddenly a forced laborer again, a guard clubbing at him to get him moving, build faster, and his legs are giving out because the only thing he’s been given to eat all day is half a ration of soup that was more water than anything else and a piece of mold that passed as bread, and the guard is screaming at him to get up and move faster and he knows if he doesn’t the men around him will be beaten just the same as he will, and he’s gasping for breath but it’s cold, it’s so cold, and his lungs rattle ominously because pneumonia is running through the camp.

The sight of a needle sends fire through his veins, a scream tearing at his throat, with Zola’s smug face filling his vision, scribbling notes about his reactions, and there are needles everywhere—a needle at the crook of his elbow, a needle in the back of his hand, a needle between his toes, and they are all shooting fire into him that is burning him up and burning him out until everything is black.

A Russian tourist tells her son _стоять, stand up_ , and it doesn’t matter that she says it with a laugh in her voice, doesn’t matter that she is smiling and holding a camera; he leaps to his feet immediately and stands at attention for ten minutes, barely breathing, before Steve can coax him back to the present, because he is being taught to follow orders perfectly and if he doesn’t stay on his feet a soldier is going to pistol-whip him again and then afterward there will be the chair, there will be the lightning in his brain again, so he has to stay straight and strong and silent and still.

The Black Widow calls him James and she has to repeat it four times before he responds, because this is a test, this is to teach him that he has no name, he is no one, and if he responds to the name he will be shoved into the chair again and he does not want the chair again, he doesn’t want the chair, he doesn’t want, he doesn’t.

“How do you feel today?” Steve asks every single morning, voice soft and hopeful and aching, and he doesn’t know if it would be crueler to lie and say he is well when it will be proven false later in the day or to crush Steve’s hopes right away, first thing in the morning.

But he thinks he is starting to get better. He rides the train through three full stations before he has to get off and find a corner to duck into to regain control of himself because the piercing wind is howling in his ears and any moment he’s going to crash into the rocks that will make a jagged mess of his bones, and he is only ten minutes late meeting Steve and Sam for lunch. Last week it had been twenty.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve greets him with that special smile only he gets to see and he smiles back. He can only smile with Steve these days, it seems.

He and Steve eat everything on their plates and both uneasily eye the bits Sam leaves behind, even if it is just half a crust and a shred of lettuce. Sam, and everyone else who notices when this happens, laughs about super soldier metabolism, though Sam has also mentioned before that the stash of nonperishable foods hidden on a shelf in the back of the towel closet is normal for POW—hoarding food, in case they’re not allowed any later. What Sam doesn’t realize is Steve contributes, too, and Steve was never a POW but the Depression was a hungry, stomach-gnawing time and they both have a burning need to make sure, make sure, make sure, keep the pantry stocked just in case, in case the winter is hard, in case the Market crashes again, in case someone gets sick and they need to buy medicine, in case there’s no more work.

They are leaving a few bills on the table and standing up to leave when it happens. He hears Zola’s voice, hears that accented, nasal drone that will never leave his mind.

“Soldier,” Zola sneers, and now his breath is coming out ragged, _no no no_ , Zola is _dead_ , this is the future and Zola is too old to be alive here, now, but there’s that lab coat and that pudgy face. He makes himself hold still because if he doesn’t it will hurt so much worse, with the restraints around his arms and legs so tight they will leave scars that will never permanently fade, but then Zola is looking at _Steve_ and suddenly he knows Steve is the real prize here, Zola always wished to get his hands on Captain America, and he is snarling and screaming and moving; he knocks Steve to the ground and covers him the way a dog protects its young and he’s ignoring Steve’s protests because Steve doesn’t know what Zola’s capable of but _he_ knows, he knows too well, and he will rip Zola’s body apart before he lets Steve fall into that.

“Bucky!” Steve is trying to get up, but he can’t let Steve up. “Stop, Buck, stop!”

“Come back, man, listen to my voice.” Sam’s voice is soothing but he can’t let his guard drop, not with Zola hovering and waiting for him to falter. “Whatever you’re seeing isn’t real right now, okay? It’s something that happened to you before. We’re in New York and we’re having lunch. We’re not going to let anyone hurt you.”

“He can’t have Steve,” he is growling, snapping his jaws like the animal he is, and Zola seems to be shrinking. He pauses, confused. What is happening? Zola is getting smaller, and then Zola is gone.

He is in the café, atop Steve, and there is a smashed plate beside him, and every other customer is watching—someone is recording everything on a phone, even—and people are covering their mouths and staring at him, horrified, their eyes scared. A small child is crying.

“Is he gonna hurt Captain America?” The little girl wails, and he is suddenly shaking and he jumps away from Steve. Steve kneels beside him but doesn’t touch him and Sam stands in front of them, blocking them from view of the other diners, and starts talking to the crowd. He stays on the ground, rocking slightly on his heels as he crouches in the corner, gripping his head tightly enough that he feels the left arm gouging his skin.

“Buck?” Steve whispers. He feels tears on his face and he shakes his head at Steve. “It’s okay. You’re safe right now, alright? I’m right here with you.”

He is making a whimpering sound and it’s horribly emasculating but he can’t stop. There’s the flash of a camera and Steve is suddenly springing up, reversing their roles and guarding him.

“What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing?” Steve bellows, ignoring the hand Sam puts on his chest. “He’s a _war hero_ who went through hell for longer than you’ve been alive. Why would you take a picture of this? How dare you!”

“I need you to go back to Bucky,” Sam says, gentle but leaving no room for argument. “I’ll deal with the civilians. Get him out of here and call Stark to come pick you both up. Tell him to send Pepper to handle the PR part of this.”

“They can’t just disrespect him—” Steve is still craning his neck to identify the photographer and Sam actually grabs a fistful of Steve’s shirt to yank his face down to Sam’s level.

“Rogers, your boy is over there falling apart on the floor and you’re the only one he’s going to let close to him. Now get your ass over there and let me handle this.”  
  
It works. Steve comes back to him, close but not touching because he can’t be touched after these kinds of things, not until he can breathe again, not until he’s sure he won’t hurt anyone.

“Buck,” Steve says softly. He shakes his head again.

“Don’t touch,” he rasps, voice raw from growling and screaming.

“I won’t touch you until you say I can,” Steve promises. Steve is the only one he believes implicitly. “Do you want to go outside?”

On one hand, outside has fresher air and no people watching him and taking photos of him. But outside is _big_ and _loud_ and _open_ and where will he take cover if someone opens fire? He can cover Steve, but it would be his last act, and he doesn’t want Steve to have to fight after he goes down.

“There’s an alley right around the corner,” a waiter says. An alley would be safer. Steve looks at the waiter, who gives a slightly bitter smile. “Fallujah.”

“Thank you,” Steve says in that earnest way only he can pull off. “Buck?”

He stands up warily, ducking his head to avoid seeing any of the people in the crowd, and hooks his flesh hand into the crook of Steve’s elbow because he wants to be able to pull Steve to safety if anything happens and he knows Steve is unsettled and needs grounding and touching Steve helps him come back to himself because Steve is solid and strong and warm.

He rests against a brick wall and pants and Steve shields him from sight of the street. Sam comes out after a few minutes and stands next to Steve.

“You want to talk about it?” Sam asks.

He is digging his fingernails into the skin of his collarbone because nothing keeps him grounded like pain, but Steve tugs his hand away and holds it instead, lacing their fingers together and squeezing gently, and that works even better than the pain.

“Zola,” he murmurs. “I saw—I _thought_ I saw Zola. Heard him.” Steve’s hand tightens against his.

“There was a man with an accent like Zola’s who walked by our table,” Steve says. “He was talking on the phone.”

“You want to talk about what was Zola doing?” Sam asks. Sam has coaxed him through situations like this before and always says _do you want to talk_ so he won’t feel ordered to talk if it makes his throat close and his body shake.

“He was…” He bites his lip and tastes blood and Steve swipes a thumb over his mouth to dislodge his teeth. “He was going to take Steve.”

“Can you tell me what was he going to do to Steve?”

“Hurt him,” he answers without hesitation. “Experiment on him. When he—before, he always asked about Captain America. And the second time, after my arm, he wanted to know where Steve was. He’s always wanted to get Steve.”

“You never gave me up.” Steve sounds too proud and it hurts. He had never said anything about Steve, but the first time he hadn’t known who Captain America was and the second time he hadn’t known who _Steve_ was. He hadn’t been brave or strong, the way Steve always says he was. He had just been useless. Sam holds out a hand at Steve, silently asking him to stop talking.

“You want to tell me how you kept Zola from getting Steve?”

“I didn’t.” He feels confused again. “He—smaller.” He can’t remember the word. How does he say Zola’s body went away? “He got smaller. And then he was gone.”

“He shrank,” Steve murmurs, somehow knowing he can’t think of what he wants to say. Yes, that’s the word. He nods. Sam nods back at him.

“Your mind got rid of him.” Sam smiles. “That’s a good thing.”

After a few minutes, Stark and Ms. Potts show up. Ms. Potts sees him, leaning against the wall, sweating, shaking, tears on his face, and her eyes blaze.

“Someone took photos?” She asks sharply.

“Video,” he says in a small voice, because he's a little bit afraid of the fire in her eyes but he can speak up because Steve is there. “Someone was recording.” He thinks Ms. Potts looks like she is going to hurt someone. Stark must agree.

“Okay, honey, don’t light anyone on fire, huh?” Stark always jokes, even about things that are serious. Ms. Potts really _can_ light people on fire.

“They would deserve it,” Steve says fiercely. Ms. Potts nods.

“I will handle this,” she promises. She smiles at him sadly. “I’m sorry everything is so hard for you right now.” Her heartfelt sincerity throws him for a loop. She doesn’t wait for a response, just marches into the diner while Stark stares after her appreciatively.

“Are you aware that she is a _literal_ fire cracker?” Sam says.

“Very,” Stark replies. “Are you ready to go, or do you need a few more minutes?”

He doesn’t want to get in the car yet, the car that is small and confining and can easily be tampered with to cause accidental-looking crashes. (He knows this fact first-hand.) He wants to keep breathing air that smells vaguely unpleasant, but the kind of unpleasant he is used to because some smells don’t change much even in seventy years—car exhaust, garbage, too many people in too small a space, cooking oil and food smells. But he doesn’t want them to wait on him. He doesn’t like burdening them more than he already does.

“We can go,” he says. His voice is not as strong as he wishes it was. Stark looks at him for a long minute and shakes his head.

“Let’s wait.”

He opens his mouth to protest but instead gets Steve’s sad, earnest eyes again. “Buck, if you need to wait, we’ll wait.”

“Don’t want to be a hassle,” he mumbles, and Steve is squeezing his hand again. He can tell Steve is just barely containing himself from stroking his hair and his face and maybe kissing him a time or two. He likes when Steve does that but not yet, not until he knows for sure what’s real and what’s not, and not with Sam and Stark there.

“It’s not a hassle to take the time you need.” It is, surprisingly, Stark who speaks up. “I mean, Capsicle here was mostly comatose while you were gone, so having you back means we get him back, too. You’re actually more useful than a regular person.”

After a few more minutes, the storm in his head has cleared enough that he can bear the thought of a car ride, and they go back to the Tower.

“I’m gonna head home,” Sam says when they get there. “But call if you need me, okay? And try to write it down like your therapist asked you to.”

He grumbles a little, because he doesn’t like writing things—his hands are out of practice in holding anything other than knives or guns, and his brain sometimes doesn’t cooperate in making his hands make the right shape—but he tries not to look too ungrateful.

“Thank you,” he tells Sam. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for, man. When I first got back, a car backfired outside my house and I hit the deck. You went through hell. You can’t just bounce back from that.”

He is a little afraid to face Steve. He knows Steve won’t be upset with him directly, but Steve _will_ be upset, about the whole situation, he always says, and it will be his fault. But he also wants to go to Steve because Steve is comforting and he still feels unsettled about Steve getting hurt. He sits down on the couch beside Steve, who is sitting without the TV or a book or even a pencil and sketch pad.

“Are you okay?” Steve asks as soon as he sits down.

“Not really,” he says truthfully. “I never will be.”

Steve’s eyes are sad and pained. “Don’t say that.”

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to find the words he wants to say. “I might figure out how to be stable someday,” he starts. “But I’m not going to be _good_. I’m always going to be…messed up. If I get over one thing, there’s a million more things to get over. I’m a matryoshka doll.”

“What?”

He flushes at the confused look on Steve’s face. Had he switched to Russian without realizing? Oh, just one word. But he doesn’t know the English word. “There’s a big one, and you open it and there’s a smaller one, and you open it and there’s another smaller one?”

“Oh, a Russian nesting doll.” Steve laughs a little but it’s not a very happy laugh. “That’s a good metaphor, Buck.”

“I—Steve, don’t…I’m telling you I should go. Because it’s going to keep happening.” He finds it distracting to his mission of extricating himself from Steve when Steve laughs. And praises him. And sits close to him. But he reminds himself that someday he could think Steve is a threat, Steve could accidentally elbow him in the back and he’ll see a guard instead of Steve, and he won’t hurt Steve.

Steve, to his credit, doesn’t immediately protest. Instead, Steve looks at him for a long time, not saying anything, before finally settling on: “Do you _want_ to go?”

“No,” he says automatically. “But I have to.”

“Why?” Now Steve sounds upset. He lets that fuel him. He’ll hurt Steve if he stays.

“That kid thought I was hurting you. I _could_ hurt you.” He stares down at his metal arm and clenches and unclenches the fist that could cave in Steve’s skull.

“Buck.” Steve puts a finger under his chin and tilts his head up. “You thought Zola was coming for me and you protected me. Do you remember what you were saying?”

“I didn’t say anything.” He never does when Zola is there. He's not allowed to.

“You did. You were screaming a lot. And you kept saying _not him_. You said _you can have me but you can’t take him_.” Steve’s voice is wobbly. “You were willing to go back to them if it meant I was safe.”

He wrinkles his brow. “Of course I would.” He shivers a little at the thought of what they would do to him, but the thought of what they would do to Steve makes him feel like he needs to vomit. He knows he can live through it. He knows Steve could probably live through it, too, but he will not let that happen to Steve. Steve laces their fingers together again.

“I trust you,” Steve says simply. “And I want you to stay. If you have flashbacks every day, or if you wake me up every night with your nightmares, or if we live the rest of our lives in this room right here because you never want to go into the outside world, I would still want you to stay. But if you need to be away from me, if you want to go, I won’t stop you. I’ll always be here waiting if you ever want to come back, but I’m not going to force you to stay.”

His throat feels tight and he thinks that means he’s going to cry. Sometimes he can’t tell. “I don’t want to go,” he whispers, fisting a hand in Steve’s shirt. Steve wraps him up in arms that are strong and warm and safe and presses a kiss to his temple.

“So don’t.”

So he doesn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if it was too confusing or not, but I was experimenting with Bucky never thinking of himself with a name--his name doesn't show up unless someone else says it.
> 
> Come flail with me on tumblr! (Same username--I cannot for the life of me figure out how to link it because for some reason ao3 keeps linking internally? I'm not a computery enough person for this.)


End file.
